Deepa Dharmadhikari joined the University of Minnesota’s BFA Dance programme, but sneakily enrolled in several MFA lighting courses. As a student, she designed original lighting for the choreographies of José Limón, Trisha Brown, Sardono W. Kusumo, Shapiro & Smith, Karen Sherman & Morgan Thorson, Mathew Janczewski, and Max Pollak, among others.

In the US she has designed for Gregory Maqoma, Cathy Young and Niles Ford, Yutaka Joraku, George Balanchine, Caroline Beach, Mariusz Olszewski, Eliot Feld, Kristin Kenning, Cade Holmseth and Justin Leaf.

She has toured the US, Korea, and Japan as lighting designer for the Daksha Sheth Dance Company. In India, directors and choreographers she has worked with include Lilette Dubey, Nandita Das, Geeta Chandran, Pratibha Prahlad, Sharmila Biswas, Savita Sastry and Pramila LeHunte. She is based in New Delhi, India.